Oct. 18, 2020 - Summer - Wildflowers

In northern Minnesota this past week, we had our first significant snowfall of the season. It will probably melt in a few days, but it’s a reminder that we will soon be buried under the white stuff. I still have many photos taken this summer that I want to share with you so, for the next few weeks, I’ll try to squeeze them in.

This week I’m featuring wildflowers. This is the flower from a Swamp Milkweed plant. It likes a wetter environment that the Common Milkweed. This year we had a very healthy crop of Swamp Milkweed along the shoreline of our lake. Monarch butterflies seem to like Swamp Milkweed at least as much, if not more, than Common Milkweed.

MilkweedSwampDunningLakeItascaCounty20200705

Arrowhead is another plant that grows along the shoreline of the lake.

ArrowheadWildflowerGardenDunningLakeItascaCounty20200803

Bunchberry blooms in early June and eventually produces a cluster of dark blue berries.

BunchberryDunningLakeItascaCounty20200605SamsungGalaxy

There is a small pond next to our driveway and it’s a great location for wildflowers. This photo and the next four were all taken near the pond. This is Blue Bead Lily. True to its name, it does produce large blue berries.

LilyBluebeadClintoniaborealisDunningLakepondourdrivewayItascaCounty20200606

Wild Calla, also called Water Arum, grows in the mud at the edge of the pond. Each plant has a single flower which eventually produces a cluster of red berries.

CallaWildpalustrisDunningLakepondourdrivewayItascaCounty20200606

Dogwood bushes grow around the pond and produce flowers like these.

DogwoodRedosierDunningLakepondourdrivewayItascaCounty20200606

For the second year in a row, we found a few Closed Gentian plants near the pond. These blue flowers are so tightly closed at the top that only large bees are strong enough to force them open to pollinate them.

GentianClosedGentianaandrewsiiDunningLakeItascaCounty20200821

False Lily of the Valley is a small plant that could easily be overlooked.

LilythevalleyFalseMaianthemumcanadenseDunningLakepondourdrivewayItascaCounty20200606

This is the flower from a Bush Honeysuckle plant.

HoneysuckleNorthernBushDiervillaloniceraDunningLakeItascaCounty20200628

Cow Parsnip has a very sturdy stem and can grow as tall as seven feet. It has large clusters of flowers up to eight inches across. It’s actually a member of the carrot family and is common along roadsides in our area. This photo was taken along Itasca County Road 325.

ParsnipCowHeracleumlanatumItasca325County20200628

This plant is way past the flowering stage, but with the sun shining on it and the deep shadows in the background, it presented a dramatic image. It’s actually a Fireweed plant. Fireweed produces a cluster of purple flowers which turn into long, thin seed pods. A single plant can produce up to 80,000 seeds. Each seed has long, silky hairs attached to it, similar to Milkweed seeds. Eventually the seed pods burst open, sending the seeds flying.

FireweedDunningLakeItascaCounty20201002